The Linguistic Features of Acronyms in Arabic

Abdel Rahman Mitib Altakhaineh

SAGE Open, 2017, vol. 7, issue 4, 2158244017746710

Abstract: This study investigates the phonological, semantic, and pragmatic features of acronyms in Arabic. Acronyms in Arabic have appeared quite recently as a result of globalization and exposure to or contact with, mainly, English via radio stations and TV channels, which are broadcasting in English and in some countries, for example, Morocco in both English and French. Through in-depth analysis, it has been observed that acronyms in Arabic are subject to different restrictions: (a) The phonological combinations are formed on the basis of Arabic templates; hence, should be compatible with Arabic phonotactics, for example, consonant clusters should be broken up by vowels; (b) the connotation of the acronyms should not be negative; and (c) in conformity with relevance theory, when the acronyms are homophonous to existing words, the former maximize contextual effects with minimum processing effort. The fact that they appear in certain contexts also reduces the processing effort. It has also become evident that the period between the establishment of the movement or party and the first use of the acronym decreases over time, provided that the acronyms are frequently mentioned in the media. The examination of acronyms in different languages shows that acronymization is quite pervasive cross-linguistically; this may suggest that not any word-formation process can easily spread; it needs to be prevalent and potentially universal.

Keywords: acronyms; Arabic; initialism; prosodic morphology; relevance theory; word-formation process (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:sagope:v:7:y:2017:i:4:p:2158244017746710

DOI: 10.1177/2158244017746710

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